When it comes to veterinary marketing, not all strategies are created equal. Last week, we talked about the key components for marketing your practice—and now we’re taking it one step further.
Let’s talk efficiency.
It’s one thing to implement a checklist of marketing tactics, but quite another to streamline the process for maximum benefit, with minimal time invested.
That’s why we’ve compiled five awesome tricks to help increase productivity at your veterinary practice.
#1. Automate what you can.
“Manual data entry is a huge time-saver!” said no veterinary team ever.
Repetitive tasks take valuable team members away from clients and patients, which can be detrimental to providing stellar, timely service.
While you obviously can’t do away with many of the tasks around your practice completely, finding ways to make them faster and more efficient can keep your focus on the animals—and that’s where technology comes in.
Need to send lots of emails every day? Look into an email communication system that lets you build templates, so you don’t need to type it all out over and over. Need to keep track of social media? Try a social media aggregator program to put all of your feeds in one place. If you can think of something that takes you too much time, someone has likely thought of the answer, so don’t be afraid to research!
#2. Share the practice workload.
The latest technology can help streamline productivity at your practice, but teamwork is your most powerful asset. Whether you’re a practice owner, a vet tech or the most recent administrative hire—no one person should wilt under the pressure of an oversized workload.
Play to the strengths of your team, and help one another to maximize your collective time and energy. Everyone has a role to play in the process of running a veterinary practice, so if you, for example, have some team members who are adept at social media, ask them to run that part of your practice.
It’s important to invest in cross-training, too. You don’t need to put years into training everyone to do everything, but having your techs know enough to run the desk if administrative staff are overwhelmed or out sick, for example, can be a huge advantage.
#3. Prioritize strong communication.
Every veterinary practice operates best as a cohesive unit, which is only possible with effective communication between team members.
If you’re not all on the same page, clients are more likely to receive mixed messages—a paramount risk for pets. Weekly meetings are a great way to touch base with your team, and they don’t have to take a ton of time either!
Setting agendas, time limits, and processes for which conversations should happen outside of meetings are great ways to keep a tight rein on meetings. Depending on the size of your practice, it may also help to split up meetings by different teams.
#4. Strive to be paperless.
Looking for more time-savers? Go paperless! Sure, a hard-copy appointment reminder is a great physical way to ensure your clients don’t forget to visit—but what happens when they inevitably lose that tiny piece of cardstock?
Looking for faster, easier alternatives for pet owner reminders? Find out how ALLYDVM’s automated email, text message, and other communications can bolster your success.
Beyond reminders, there are a lot of other ways to become more paperless. Does your clinic still use paper patient records? Electronic medical records are the way forward, and those who have made the change never want to change back. If you haven’t made the transition yet—it’s not as hard as you think!
#5. Use templates for patient care forms.
Speaking of paperless, another great benefit of electronic medical records is the ability to autofill pre-made templates for everything from common treatment plans to surgery records.
Rather than wasting heaps of time filling out essential paperwork by hand, all you have to do is open a template on your computer or tablet, check some boxes, and you’re smooth-sailing through the rest of your daily appointments.
So there you have it, five useful tricks to enhance efficiency and profitability at your practice. Now it’s time to give them a try!
Ready to boost productivity at your practice? Embrace the LifeLearn ECOsystem and unleash the time-saving power of ALLYDVM—book a demo today!
